After the Pulwama attack, Pakistani strategic commentators are constantly raising the question of nuclear deterrence reliability within the South Asian region. They understand this but they are ignoring India’s nature of nuclear doctrine. Ayesha Siddiqa has stated regarding nuclear deterrence and the limits of it while using against Pakistan. Can India think about destroying the Jaish’s HQ 200 mile far from LoC? It is possible but covertly.
Before we go through the strategic depth of India’s nuclear doctrine, we need to look into the historical background of Pakistan’s nuclear build up. Pakistan nuclear policy has been India centric, revolving around perceptions of threat and hostility from India. The fundamental aim of its nuclear weapons program is to avoid a repetition of the defeat of 1971. The 1971 war was not only a conventional defeat for Pakistan but also resulted in the reduction of its territory. It posed a serious threat to its survival as a state. The second aim is to deterring India not to retaliate by conventional means during terror attacks. Pakistan’s Information and Technology Minister later Wazir-e-Azam Zulfikar Ali Bhutto remarked in 1965 that, “If India builds the bomb, we will eat grass or leaves- even go hungry but we will get one of our own.” Before this Pakistan had started its nuclear research program in 1957. The Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) was established to train nuclear scientists and to set up a nuclear reactor. The 1965 and 1971 defeats accelerated the urge to use nuclear power for military purposes. Pakistan further intensified its nuclear activities after India detonated a nuclear device in May 1974, as a turning point.
Pakistan adopted the catalytic posture during the first phase of its nuclear weaponization from the 1980s to 1991. Optimization theory laid that due to the presence of a reliable third party as a patron i.e. the US, Pakistan would adopt a catalytic posture. Since 1979, the US policy towards Pakistan has been of a helping hand to counter the USSR’s presence in Afghanistan. In this period, the US assured the security of Pakistan from external threats. However, after the loss of the momentum in the bilateral relationship, the US umbrella started lifting. Due to this reason, Pakistan tested its first Atomic bomb on 30 May 1998 at Chagai Hills just after Indian tests on 11 and 13 May at Pokhran.
After the 1998 test, Pakistan changed its nuclear posture overtly as an asymmetric escalation posture. In 1999 Kargil war failure showed again the superiority of Indian conventional forces. This again created a precarious security environment for Pakistan, which lead to a change in the posture. Pakistan decided to follow the First Use of the nuclear weapons and this posture required the delegative command and control system i.e. in this more power were given in the hands of the military officers or commanding officers than civilian political authorities. The delegative C&C system creates possibilities of inadvertent use of these weapons. The state’s domestic structure of civil-military relations best suited to this posture in Pakistan. The rationalist thing is the use of resources available in the country either they use in the development of civilian authority or in this posture. This posture needs more resources as compared to other posture i.e. eating grass and making atomic bombs. The security threats in the strategist’s mind in Pakistan with AEP posture leading a vertical proliferation of the nuclear weapons within Pakistan more than enough to deter India.
India’s Nuclear doctrine providing a safe and internationally accepted stand of No First Use with Mutually Assured Retaliation. This doctrine has the capability of the second strike with punitive action. In this doctrine, the question of unpredictability is inclusive, if India has reliable intelligence of the first strike then it should strike first. India already has counter-force capability towards Pakistan and counter-value capability towards China. Counterforce capability provides India will to destroy the Pakistani arsenals before they launch it. It includes Brahmos Ballistic Missiles have the speed of nearby speed of sound. Brahmos should also be destroyed Lahore theatre of NASR missile of Battle Field Nuclear weapons of Pakistan. So there is no reason to deter to take any decision which is necessary or in the interest of the country.
